In class on Wednesday, Professor Mason brought up one of my favorite cartoon characters, Alice, and used her as evidence as how women in fields dominated by men are depicted are overly-emotional and unreasonably hysteric (fun fact: the word hysteria actually stems from the Greek word for uterus, and was used specifically to describe women’s emotional conditions, which were blamed on their physiology). Since I decided on Feminism as my topic of inquiry, I figured a great opportunity to address this would be through a blog post!
Professor Mason’s statement surprised me, because I had never considered to examine the cartoon through a “feminist” lens. Both my Dad (who is a computer scientist) and I are huge fans of Scott Adams and adore his comic strips, “Daily Dilbert Dose.” Alice has always been one of my favorite characters due to her bluntness and office tactics. I had never considered how Alice represents all women in these environments – I had only considered her as just Alice (especially since there are other recurring female characters who act vastly different from her).
So, I decided to go back through my saved stash of Dilbert cartoons and study her attributes and reactions across the board. I’ve attached some examples at the end of this blog post so you can get a feel for Alice as I argue on her behalf.
I had always perceived Alice as a woman who was just as smart as her male peers, if not smarter, and knew it. Thus, she becomes easily fed up with idiocy and doesn’t have any sort of filter when it comes to showing it. I never considered her outbursts to indicate any stereotypical volatility in the female emotional state – I just saw them as reactions from a smart individual fed up with those who refused to use their brains, would dodge work, or were just flat out stupid.
Alice is a character in a cast who all suffers from some sort of quirk or another. Dilbert is socially awkward, Wally is lazy beyond belief, Asok suffers from anxiety, the “Pointy Haired Boss” is unbelievably idiotic, and the list goes on and on. Alice’s trait is her anger, which stems from her intelligence and comes in the form of sarcasm and an incredibly short temper. I think including Alice in this canon, instead of posing her as the only “sane” worker, is very progressive because it puts her on the same playing field as her male peers. She’s not just the token female character – she has her own sense of humor she brings to the mix and a certain style to it. She’s her own person, with her own strengths and flaws. I believe her aggressive antics would be funny whether coming from a male or female character.
I also researched her Wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_(Dilbert)), to see how they described her: “Alice is depicted as being one of the hardest-working engineers in the comic. She was at one time the highest paid engineer in the company, and on another occasion she was feted for receiving her fourteenth patent. She stands in contrast with Wally, who does no work and receives nearly the same reward. Alice suffers all the problems of being a female engineer. She has no tolerance for the discrimination she experiences, but she has little sympathy for other women who claim to be the victim of such discrimination, generally considering herself to be better than them.” (Don’t worry, I’m not counting this in my word count! I just figured it would be easier to copy and paste than paraphrase)
I find Alice a strong, self-reliant woman whose intelligence is often underappreciated. Instead of being rewarded for her contributions, she’s just asked to take on more work and continue to deal with the “idiots” that aggravate her so much (such as her verbally berating the “Inexperienced Guy”). She doesn’t try to hide this annoyance; instead, she speaks her mind. I think this is where she parts with the “stereotypical” women, because a trait found in most women is they don’t always say what they mean and they cause men to play guessing games. Alice is the complete opposite, where she lets everyone know exactly how she feels about them, and speaks things most people would be terrified/ashamed of saying out loud.
But, I have to play Devil’s Advocate. Did Alice’s flaw have to be her short-temper and sharp tongue? Is Scott Adams trying to make a statement on the conduct of women in the professional realm? (I tried finding statements from him regarding Alice, but I couldn’t find any, but I personally think that Mr. Adams is not blind to the challenges women face in the business/engineering world and highlights them in his cartoons, including some of the ones attached). I think he could have made Alice lazy (there is an unnamed female secretary who irritates Alice because she shows no initiative) without there being the same outcry, but I feel if she had the anxiety Asok displayed, that would be even more offensive, showing that women can’t handle high-stress environments. And of course, if she was as dumb as the Pointy Haired Boss, it would also be an insult, showing women can’t think for themselves. She could be socially awkward like Dilbert, but I find Dilbert to be a rather bland character (despite his obvious engineering prowess).
There is Tina the Technical Writer (who is the black-haired, purple shirt lady in one of the cartoons below, complaining about Alice’s humor), and I have personally considered her a relatively bland character who serves as a tool to exploit Dilbert’s social ineptitude, and is a relatively normal person amidst the social chaos. But after reading a bio description of her on the Internet, I found that she “believes any conversation within hearing distance is intended as an insult to her profession and her gender.” I think that she serves as a foil to Alice to show conflicting stances on feminism, and that of course her disposition is exaggerated, because the entire universe is based on utter satire.
When you take into consideration that all of these characters are caricatures, Alice is still an impressive individual because she is intelligent, hard-working, driven, and relatively successful in her career. (Her dating life is another story, although it is considerably more successful than Dilbert’s and her other co-workers). Her short-temper and foul language just make her human; a character without flaws is boring. Many office folk find her outcries the highlight of their day before they delve into their own redundant activities.
I think Scott Adams isn’t entirely blind to the female dynamic in the office either, and pokes fun at it in various ways. In one of the cartoons, Asok, a man who is established as non-white (but his ethnicity is never specified), uses the “racist” card to win all arguments. Until he meets Alice, who provokes a stale mate with the “sexist” card. While his cartoon doesn’t show whether he takes a stance on whether he supports lofty words like this being thrown around, he does have Alice embrace her gender and use it to her advantage. There is also the “Social Networking” cartoon, where the male boss encourages Alice to network, but when she tries to, she is automatically assumed to be “hitting on” her superior. Here he sympathizes with women who are thrust into this position, acknowledging that it happens, but in successive cartoons, Alice defuses any accusations by simply saying, “Relax, it’s just Networking,” rather than getting all offended (although she’s reasonably ticked off). Then there is the fact that Alice is holding tools as she announces she is the highest paid engineer in the department. Dilbert asks the question that we’re all thinking: are the two related? And I do have to wonder: would I ask that same question if Alice was male? And I think I would, if that male had the same aggressive disposition Alice is portrayed to have.
Alice is also used to point out deficiencies in male culture, such as in the cartoon with the Robot, where she programs an unsuspected “defect” into the robot by having him be interested in male hobbies and think like a man. I think the fact that Scott Adams consistently pokes fun at both genders throughout his cartoons show that his intention in crafting Alice to be someone who easily flies off the handle isn’t to be intentionally offensive to the female engineering community.
But then we have to ask, is it sub/unconscious (I’m never sure which to use after learning Freud)? I don’t know if there’s a way to prove it. I don’t think so, because he doesn’t consistently make all of his female characters angry. Annoyed to some extent, yes, but all the characters in his cartoon are. But if it were somehow proven that he sub/unconsciously made Alice the way she is because that reflects a detrimental female attribute, how does that affect society? Does that limit women in any way? Is Alice affected by a “glass-ceiling?” I believe she certainly isn’t getting the respect she deserves – but the same goes for Dilbert as well. I don’t know the answers to these questions, but hopefully after studying the subject in more detail this semester, I can think of some.
I think it would also be interesting to perform an in-depth study of the evolution of Alice’s character. In the older cartoons, I found a lot more instances of Alice being violent and invoking her “Fist of Death” (two are attached: one involving her work being used as a “back-up” and the other using her “eye cannons”). In the newer cartoons (circa 2010), however, Alice is more likely to explode verbally or berate people with a horrendously hurtful sarcasm than to physically harm anyone. Does this represent a sophistication of her character of some sorts? Does this reflect the workforce and a change in which women present themselves? Or has Mr. Adams’ humor just evolved with his age?
Just so I actually engage in some critical thought in this post, I think a person’s interpretation of Alice also has to do with whether they think gender is performative, or inherent. If one considers gender strictly performative, then I do not believe Alice has any defining “female” attribute, besides whenever she uses her gender to get what she wants or have the final say in arguments. I believe her behavior can translated to someone who is physically male, without him appearing effeminate. With that being said, I don’t believe her current behavior limits her as “butch,” either. She’s just an intelligent individual who is easily pissed off.
But, if you view gender as being inherent (meaning directly related to your genitals/hormones), then I can see how there might be some offense taken from Alice’s behavior, because of the whole hysteria thing I explained in the first paragraph (why is that so much further than I thought it was…?). Does Alice act the way she does because of her hormones, not simply because that’s who she is? Has Scott Adams crafted her with women’s mood swings and other “symptoms” in mind? Or is she a consistently irritated person, because of a consistently perennial “problem” of simply being female?
I personally feel like that belief is so archaic, because despite all having the same hormones, women’s personalities are so vastly different. Some women are aromantic, some don’t have any emotional attachment to children, some can be angry all the time, cry at everything, or completely apathetic. Just because Alice happens to be angry doesn’t mean it necessary speaks for her sex/gender; I’ve always seen it as it just speaking on behalf of her character (however questionable it may be, at this point).
I think these questions also raise a larger question of how women today want to be represented in different ways, and what this means for feminism. If a female character falls in a trope, does that cause her to limit female development and behavior by propagating a certain behavior or belief? Even if there are a substantial number of women who still belong in that trope, such as the house-wife? Even if there are other characters who are starkly different from this trope in circulation? How do women feel about this? Do they care?
I think the main question in regards to whether Alice is a healthy expression of female character is: are women in business/engineering/male-dominated professions consistently being represented this way, when in fact, it is completely inaccurate. I don’t know. Maybe they are, and if so, then I will renounce Alice and advocate for a new character who breaks those confines of female portrayal.
To be honest, I don’t know how women are represented, because there are so many different representations in circulation. But hopefully throughout reading on contemporary feminism and reviewing all sorts of media, I’ll gain a better understanding of how society sees women. But as for now, I still love Alice as a character, I don’t find her in opposition of feminism (even though she displays tendencies of being a female chauvinistic pig, by not having sympathy for women who play the female card and always bring up talk of discrimination when it is not relevant), and will continue to enjoy reading about her mishaps and laugh at her cleverly construed one-liners.
These are just my personal opinions (and probably biases, too), and I hope my presentation was cogent enough (I may come back and edit this, but I feel like that’s anti-organic, so I’m not sure). If you end up reading this Dr. Mason and would like to critique Alice’s character and turn-over any of my insights/arguments, I would be absolutely pleased! 🙂
Hope anyone who comes across this enjoys the cartoons at least, even if they don’t have patience to read my ramble.
